


The Hollow Highwayman

by W4nderingStar



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Don't worry, Headless Horseman Reaper, Holloween Universe, M/M, Pumpkin Reaper, Slasher:76 Soldier:76, Supernatural husbands meeting for the first time, Viloance against a nightmare, even a flesh eating nightmare/horse, he's fine at the end becauase I would never allow any true harm to come to an animal, the pumpkin king has finally met his match
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 05:04:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21247910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/W4nderingStar/pseuds/W4nderingStar
Summary: Something is amiss in the Highwayman's world.





	The Hollow Highwayman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [petitecreame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/petitecreame/gifts).

> The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,  
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,  
The road was a ribbon of moonlight, over the purple moor,  
And the highwayman came riding. Riding-riding  
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.  
-The Highwayman  
By Alfred Noyes
> 
> You can all turn your attention to @gemsheldrake and bow to her and her amazing talent. I was thirst tweeting for Gabriel Reyes on horseback, and dear god did she deliver!! T_T I have been so blessed. Please, accept my humble offering of a fic to go with your art!  
https://twitter.com/gemsheldrake/status/1183026334395748355  
https://twitter.com/gemsheldrake/status/1183147363583561728

**The Hollow Highwayman**

Blackwatch tossed his head, ears back, smoke curling from his nostrils. The Highwayman pat the stallion’s neck. 

“Easy, boy,” he crooned. “Easy.” 

The stallion lowered his head, but the cloven hooves still stamped the road, little gouts of flame sparking on contact. He was agitated. Very few things upset the nightmare stallion. 

“What’s got a burr under your saddle?” the Highwayman asked. 

Blackwatch shook his head and pawed at the ground, ears staying flat against his head. The Highwayman summoned one of his weapons. In a swirl of fire and smoke, a shotgun appeared in his hand.

“Let’s see who’s here.” He put his heels to the stallion’s side. 

Blackwatch screamed, rising up onto his hind legs. His forehooves slashed at the air, flames spilling past his rows of fangs into the night. The Highwayman jerked the reins to one side, pulling the stallion off balance and forcing him back to the ground. The second the cloven hooves touched down, he lept into a gallop. 

Embers flew from the stallion’s mane and tail, smoke streamed in their wake as they charged into the night. The Highwayman crouched low over the jet-black neck, hands pumping the reins. Blackwatch would take him right to the disturbance in their territory, and then they would kill it. 

The road in front of them curved around a hill. The Highwayman laid the rains on Blackwatch’s neck, pressing his heel against the stallion’s side. They came around the turn. A twisted wreck of metal smoldered in the middle of the road. 

“Damn!” 

The Highwayman stood in the stirrups and hauled on the reins. Blackwatch took the bit in his teeth and surged forward, gathered himself, and launched into the air. They sailed over the wreckage. 

A glint of something among the trees caught the Highwayman’s eye. What in the— 

Blackwatch touched down in a burst of flame. The glint turned into a fast moving beam. 

“Fuck!” The Highwayman leaped from Blackwatch’s back as the white hot bullet hit the stallion right behind the skull. 

Blackwatch’s screech was cut short as the blast severed his head clean off his neck. The body crashed to the ground. The head bounced twice before rolling to a stop a few feet from the body. 

Another blast streaked right for the Highwayman. He leaned out of the way. The air sizzled with a familiar heat for the split second it whizzed by. The closest tree behind him exploded in a geyser of orange flame. 

“I liked that nightmare,” he snarled. He lifted his hands. Both shotguns collesled in his hands. He pulled the triggers. 

The guns roared, blasting apart the air and trees with ruby-red hellfire. Something darted away from the devastation. The Highwayman whipped around, unloading his weapons on the trunk of a tree. The wood splintered and it toppled right for the retreating blur. 

The blur jumped out of the way and rolled to safety as the massive tree slammed down. Finally, the Highwayman got a good look at the attacker. 

It was a man. A massive rifle, outfitted with some kind of saw on the barrel, lay in the road, a couple of feet from his spiked, black biker boots. Bone-white hair crowned his head and a red leather jacket encased his broad shoulders. Form-fitting pants drew the Highwayman’s eye. A nice looking ass was stuffed into those pants. He shook his head to clear the thought from his mind.

“You look ridiculous,” the Highwayman snarled, leveling the shotguns at the interloper. 

The man turned his face toward him. It was covered by a white mask dotted with holes and vertical slits in place of a mouth. Orange vapor oozed out of the slits and burning orange-white light poured out of the eye holes in the mask. 

“Have you looked in the mirror lately?” The masked man lunged for his rifle. 

The Highwayman snarled and fired a split second too late. The blast tore apart the ground. The masked man rolled over the rifle, came up in a kneel, and fired. 

One of the shotguns blasted apart in smoke and flame, nearly taking the Highwayman’s hand with it. 

“Son of a bitch!” He turned into smoke an instant before another bullet would have pierced his chest.

He streaked toward the attacker, solidifying a hand on the gun and pushing it out of the way when it fired. The shot went wild. He brought the shotgun up to the man’s chest and pulled the trigger. The round exploded in a cacophony of fire and sound. 

The man flew backwards. He smashed into the ground back first, chest smoking. He didn’t move. Nothing moved after taking a direct hit from the shotguns. 

“That was for my horse,” the Highwayman snarled. 

He walked toward the man on the ground. The guns should have ripped the soul from the body, but he hadn’t felt the usual jolt of power. What in the world was this creature? 

Standing above the body, he watched as the wounds closed before his eyes. The only evidence of the shotgun’s damage was a small tear in the raggedy white shirt.

The eyes opened. 

“Shit.” The Highwayman brought the shotgun to bare. 

The masked stranger kicked the gun out of his hand. It smashed into a tree and exploded in flame and shadow. 

Before he could recover, the stranger swept the Highwayman’s legs out from under him. He hit the ground. His other gun clattered away. The masked man sprang up, rifle pointed at the Highwayman’s chest. 

He kicked the bastard’s knee, snapping it backwards. With a grunt, the man went down, rifle shots blasting nothing. The Highwayman leapt up. The masked man tried to yank up the rile. 

The Highwayman opened his hand. The spine handle of his whip appeared in his grasp. He swung up. The thong whistled through the air and wrapped around the rifle. With a yank, he ripped the weapon from the masked man’s grasp. 

The Highwayman cracked the whip, smashing the rifle to the ground. It shattered in a flash of orange vapor. He yanked it back as the masked man’s knee let out a crack and popped back into place. 

“I don't know who you are,” the Highwayman snarled. “But you just made the biggest mistake of your life.” He drew back and swung the whip to coil around the man’s throat. 

Quick as lightning, the man reached up and snatched the thong mid-air. The fall wrapped harmlessly around the forearm. The Highwayman jerked, but he couldn't pull the whip back. 

“Knock me down, and I'll keep getting back up.” He reached for his thigh, grabbed something, and swung. 

The hatchet sliced through the braided whip, severing it. 

“Shit!” The Highwayman reeled back. The bastard had destroyed all his weapons! 

Before he could recover, the masked man lunged. They collided. Snarling, they tumbled to the ground in a hail of fists and swears. 

The Highwayman’s back hit earth and stone. A hand gripped him by his collar and an elbow drove him into the earth. The masked man reached back, hatchet blade sparkling in the moonlight. 

Time seemed to slow. The Highwayman hadn't been bested in combat in centuries. And yet, this stranger had taken him down in a matter of moments. The hatchet came down, but all he could see was the powerful chest muscles bursting out over the collar of the threadbare shit. A different heat, one he hadn’t felt in years, smoldered in his loins. 

The hatchet cleaved through his head and— 

The world was a wash of red and orange. It flickered in and out. He hated this. He hated this feeling of missing a part of him. It drove him crazy. 

He flexed his hands. Feeling flowed back into his arms and legs. He turned to smoke and got back on his feet. When he solidified, the world was a blazing inferno, the world nothing but quick glimpses through flame.

The masked man backed away from him, hatchet in one hand, the severed pumpkin head the Highwayman had been using forever in the other. 

Rage boiled through him and the world wavered. 

“You’re going to regret that.” He burst into smoke, lunging at the masked man. 

They collided and the Highwayman slammed his fist into where the jaw would be under the mask. The man’s head snapped to the side. He staggered and tried to come back with a roundhouse punch. It passed harmlessly through the smoke a fire where a head should have been. 

The Highwayman pivoted, caught the arm, and slammed his fist into the back of the elbow. It snapped. The masked man let out a grunt and tried to yank away. Not a chance. 

He spun around, wrapping an arm around the man’s neck. Broken nails clawed at his arms, but they couldn't break through his leather armor. 

“Let me go!”

“You owe me a head.” He put his hand on top of the white hair. “Yours will do.” He gave it a sharp twist.

The neck snapped with a pop. The hatchet clattered to the ground as the masked man went limp in his grasp. The Highwayman let him go. The body slumped into a pile at his boots. 

He stooped and retrieved the hatchet. Its blade looked well used and sharp as a razor. With a swing, he could have a decent human head again. It had been ages since he found one that was useable. So why was he hesitating?

It was the stupid mask. The bastard could be ugly as sin, or missing pieces. A head with half of it gone was worse than a pumpkin. Best check the goods. 

He grabbed the thick buckle above the skull and pulled the mask free. The face turned toward him and came to rest. The expression was set in repose. And what a handsome face it was. The jaw was strong and square, dusted with blonde stubble. The cheeks were slightly rounded with youth. The straight nose had never seen a break and the white hair was thick and strong. 

This boy could be no more than a few decades old at most. The Highwayman took the youthful face and turned it toward him. The neck muscles shifted, the bones slipped back into place. Impossibly long lashes fluttered, dim orange light spilling out onto the soft cheeks. 

So, he couldn't die. Or perhaps he simply healed from whatever damage was inflicted upon him. Much like his own curse. 

“Interesting.” 

He pulled the whip from his belt, tying the man’s hands behind his back and lashing the wrists to the vertebrae handle. He had many questions he wanted to ask this man, this slasher. And frankly, he wanted to see why this man had sparked a flame within him. Now… where to take him?

The Slasher grunted, flexing his arms. The Highwayman snapped his neck again and the Slasher went motionless once more. 

He gathered his prize in his arms and stood. Hooves clattered. The Highwayman turned. 

Blackwatch’s body staggered onto its hooves. The empty neck swung back and forth. The tail lashed, sending sparks across the ground. It took a wobbly step toward its head, then another. Carefully, the neck lowered. The eyes opened. Flames erupted from the neck and the back of the skull. 

The flames licked at the flesh, braiding together and pulling the missing piece back into place. Blackwatch lifted his head once more, open maw spilling hellfire into the night. He pawed the ground, tail lashing, very much alive. 

“I knew I liked you for a reason.” The Highwayman walked over and tossed the Slasher over the stallion’s rump.

With practiced ease, he swung into the saddle and gathered the reins. Balckwatch shook his head and pawed the ground. The Highwayman pat his steed’s shoulder. 

“Easy, boy, easy,” the Highwayman crooned with a smile. “Let’s find somewhere private and inspect our new prize, shall we?”

He put his heels to Balckwatch’s sides and galloped off into the night. 

**Author's Note:**

> HAPPY HALLOWEEN YA'LL!!
> 
> It's the most wonderful day of the year and I'm so happy to share it with all of you wonderful people.
> 
> Wish you all you good ghouls a safe night, full of candy and playful spookyness. :) Pour some punch out for the Pumpkin King!


End file.
